The Director and Committee have overall responsibility for the recruitment of new proposals, selection of external reviewers, final decisions regarding funding, and oversight and review of ongoing projects. In July, an announcement requesting applications for pilot and feasibility grants is sent out by the DERC administrative coordinator. The announcement is sent to all DERC members as well as to all Department and Section Heads within the Medical Center. Additional announcements are included in the regular mailings distributed to Medical School faculty by the Grants and Contracts Office. The announcement includes the deadline for receipt of applications (about the 1st of October) as well as instructions to contact the Program Office for application materials as well as for advice about eligibility. Individuals requesting an application are sent the appropriate forms by the Administrative Core (following a standard PHS 398 format) and an information and instruction package that includes eligibility criteria and related guidelines. Once the applications are received, they are reviewed by the Chairman to ensure the eligibility of the proposals and investigators, and that the applications are complete. The full committee meets within ten days, and at that time two external reviewers (and at least one alternate) are selected for each application. External reviewers are contacted by the Administrative Core to obtain their agreement to review the application. External reviewers are asked to provide a one to two page critique and assign a priority score following the NIH system. The critiques are collected and collated by the Administrative Core and are then sent to the P & F Committee, which is responsible for the ranking of the applications. The priority score of the external reviewers is the primary factor that determines funding. However, this may be adjusted by the status of the investigator. For example, if a decision had to be made between projects with identical scores, the project submitted by a young investigator would be funded over those from investigators in the other categories. Project funding recommendations are then sent to the External Advisory Board along with copies of the grant proposals. They then make the final funding recommendations to the Executive Committee. Funding of the second year of support for all projects is contingent on the principal investigator's submission of a report (using a standardized PHS format) indicating that the project is feasible and that adequate progress has been made, and that the investigator continues to meet eligibility criteria. The reports are distributed to each member of the Program Committee and they are discussed and reviewed at the same time that new applications are evaluated. Recommendations concerning approval for the second year are transmitted to the Executive Committee for final decisions. Projects are terminated if the investigator leaves Yale, if outside funding for the project is received, or if insufficient progress has been made. The Administrative Core maintains records concerning deliberations on all grant applications. The office is also be responsible for tracking publications that result from funded studies, extramural support that has derived from funded projects, and the subsequent careers of grant recipients.